A day of over-eating is followed by a day of giving into the impulses of having more stuff. I don’t understand why people participate in such an activity. Question for all of you who find justification in doing this. Don’t you have enough stuff? How much stuff is enough? The media drives this insanity and then when a incident happens where someone gets hurt during these rushes for stuff ask similar questions to the questions I am raising. Let’s address another issue relating to the Black Friday tradition. It brings out the worst in people, most notably the selfishness of people. Pushing, shoving, showing no remorse for their outlandish actions. And one day doesn’t seem to be enough. To compete with online retailers, Brick and mortar businesses have come up with Gray Thursday; businesses opening Thanksgiving day providing shoppers with ‘deals.’
The consumption lifestyle, this is a subject I am passionate about and will write more in depth regarding this subject matter in the future.
Now I can see the desire to get an item at the cheapest price, but at what cost are you willing to have that cheap item. I think this was best summarized by a comment left on NPR article, Thanksgiving Stores serve up a side of Shopping
“Thanksgiving has come to represent the launching pad for an expanded holiday season the retail sector desperately required to generate much of it annual revenue. We ought not forget how it came to find itself in such a predicament. The public need only look at one of the major culprits – Walmart, which made a based its retail business model on the import of cheaply manufactured consumer goods so they could be sold to eager American shoppers at cut rate prices. Clothing and small electronic goods were early targets and soon most major goods like stereo systems, televisions, washers/dryers and computers were outsourced to foreign manufacturers. Consumers enjoyed lower prices, brand producers saw larger profit margins and retailers volume based revenue but quality and enduring profits? Few saw what this outsourcing strategy would do to our own domestic manufacturing base and middle class buying power. No one raised alarm by asking, “What are we doing to ourselves?” The very people walking out of Walmart with the $499 big screen TV didn’t connect the dots to their diminished paychecks and weakened buying power. But the Germans sure did and said, “Hell, no, we value our manufacturing jobs because it allows our to buy their own domestically made products and the revenue on shore. Americans allowed themselves to seduced by any gadget wangled on their projection TVs. The media and government are culprits as duped consumers for not only sounding the alarm but relying on retail as a primary economic indicator. Meanwhile, the retail workforce has become the bottom feeders of the business – faceless commodities used by upper management to serve the insatiable appetite of the same voters who blame government for those evaporated higher paying manufacturing jobs that could have supported families and higher priced goods. We get these ding dong reports expounding on the challenges of the early holiday shopping experience. Welcome to the artifice known as holiday business reporting.” -Rebecca H.
The video below shows the animal-like behavior of black Friday shoppers.
http://youtu.be/XdIZAHSQCOQ
Check out related NPR article, Why black Friday has dark roots
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